The List
by CanadianChick07
Summary: Mandy struggles with what happened in Venezuela. Post 3x13.
1. Chapter 1

Mandy studied the Trident that was ripped from Lopez's uniform and left on the table after the boys left the room in disgust after they kicked Vic Lopez off the team for betraying their trust. Truth be told, she was CIA and she couldn't really believe the whole situation. She blamed herself for not being able to read the shitstorm better but like Jason had said in passing in the hallway- "18 years on the teams, never seen anything like this before." Mandy hadn't seen anything like this either and she hadn't seen it coming either. She liked the kid from her little interaction she had with him.

She tossed the fabric around and finally put it back on the table for Blackburn and Lindell to deal with. She had her own emotions to deal with after figuring out what exactly happened to Dr. Craig. Oh, she definitely felt responsible for what happened and she would for a very long time. She ultimately knew it was the hazards of the job but at the same time, she would not really get over this one. This one would stick with her for a very long time. She had learned long ago to turn off her emotions in this job but sometimes; sometimes people and ops stuck out. Dr. Craig and Venezuela would stay with her for awhile. He had stayed because she asked him to and now he was dead. His death maybe was "accidental", and maybe they would have killed him if they hadn't gotten there but all points aside, Dr. Craig was dead because of her.

Finally she stopped looking at the Trident at the table and walked out the door and straight to Blackburn's office. She knocked on the door. "My AAR will be in your inbox by midnight. Going to write it on the plane." She had already finished most of it last night, in between finding the ISR footage with Lisa and just not sleeping. She couldn't sleep, the horrors playing in her mind.

Blackburn looked up from is laptop, now in uniform. Mandy decided he looked a lot more tired than she had seen him lately. "Where are you going?"

Mandy paused. She wasn't in this chain of command, was more attached to CIA SAD and did not owe Eric Blackburn an explanation at all. With that being said, they had just escaped death and the look on her face and the look on his face said, he was more concerned for her and looking out for her as a friend than anything. "Trying to make some amends."

"Mandy," Blackburn cautioned. "Where are you going?"

She moved her hair around a little. "Guys at Oceana are making a training flight to Pensacola; I'm going to hitch a ride."

Blackburn leaned back in his chair. "Stay safe. Team meeting in 48 hours, that includes you."

Mandy gave him a tight smile. "I'll be there."

* * *

The Air Force guys gave her a smile as they told her it's okay to power up her phone and they had arrived at NAS Pensacola. Mandy silently laughed to herself. She had equipment in her backpack that could have made it possible to have a connection with the outside world while flying to Florida, but she decided that the Air Force guys didn't need to know they were flying a CIA Agent on a short trip.

She did look at her phone and see she had 3 texts from Jason and 2 missed calls. She ignored them and flagged down one of the SF guys to give her a ride to the main base gates where she gets an Uber. From there, Mandy went to the rental car agency. She rented a car under a fake name, Caroline Saunders; which she doesn't not look like a Caroline Saunders at all but it would work. And then she drove to Destin, Florida.

Along the way, she called Jason back. Thankfully the car she rented has carplay so she can call him hands free. She didn't know the rules for the state of Florida and distracted driving and she didn't really want to find out.

"Where are you?" Jason demands angrily.

"Not around, if that's what you're wondering," Mandy replied.

Jason sighed. "You said you'd be at the bar last night and then you bailed and I see you in the meeting and then you haven't been answering your phone."

Mandy laughed at him. He could be teenage girl dramatic when he needed something and couldn't get it. "I wasn't at the bar last night because I was busy saving Ray's ass and career by getting that ISR footage with Davis!" she didn't really want to say that much but she doubted a rental car would have a bug in it or something.

"Yeah, okay. Where are you now?"

Mandy decided to share a little bit, after all Jason understood quite a bit more than she ever expected him to. "Remember be talking about the list in Dr. Craig's office in Venezuela?"

"Yeah."

"Going to see someone on that list."

Jason sighed again. "Stay safe, Mandy." With that, he hung up.

Mandy continued driving until she got to Destin, which really wasn't far from Pensacola. The house she was looking for was older but had a lot of charm and wasn't far from the beach. If all else failed, she would plunk herself on the beach for the next 48 hours and just watch the ocean, she decided. She wasn't surprised at the house, though. It fit her expectations, surprisingly. It just fit.

She parked the car as she saw him out on the porch, laptop in hand. She slowly, walked up to the porch, not really knowing what her welcome would be but she decided to make the first move. "It's March and you're sitting on the front porch, working."

He looked up. "Salty ocean air beats the J-bad air anytime. I try and take advantage."

"That it sure does. Gorgeous place," she commented.

"How'd you find it?"

"I find people," Mandy smiled, weakly. It was an abbreviated version of what she told Dr. Craig in Venezuela: "I'm CIA, I'll find you."

Paul Mulwray stood up from the table he was sitting at and crossed the floor until he stood close to Mandy. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at her directly in the eye. "So what exactly made you come find me in Destin, Florida after all this time?"

Mandy shrugged, not exactly how much of the truth to tell Paul. They were the worst about beating around facts and telling each other half truths and half lies, constantly. That was who they were. She decided to go for the absolute truth this time. "Something happened that I was more or less directly responsible for and it made me realize somethings."

Paul looked out onto the street and then back at Mandy. "What did it exactly make you realize then?"

"You asking me as an investigative journalist?" Mandy immediately became wary again. Paul was very good at asking questions; questions usually she didn't want to answer.

Paul rolled his eyes. "Cut the shit, Mandy. I'm asking as a concerned friend because you showed up at my house after a long time with a look of horrors on your face that tell me that shit really went to hell somewhere."

Mandy tried not reliving what happened. "Shit really hit the fan."

Paul held out his hand, realizing that something really went wrong for her to show up. "Come on inside. I'll show you around."

"Just like that? Going to let a stranger inside your house?" Mandy joked as she followed Paul into the house.

He gave her a glance, realizing her attempt at making a joke. "You're a stranger than most people, Mandy. I'm glad you came though."

Mandy looked around the house and then back at Paul. "Me too." Maybe here, she would find some measure of peace, healing and understanding, or at least for 48 hours.

* * *

**AN: we need some more Mandy stories around here!**


	2. Chapter 2

Mandy awoke to the sound of her phone ringing. A sound that should not have been happening for a good 36 hours or so until she was back in Virginia. Her work phone was off and on the bottom of her carry on bag, not to be turned back on until she got back. And the wretched noise was coming her personal phone that was on her bedside. The personal phone that very few people had the number to- her family and she could count the people in the Navy who had the number to it on one hand- Jason, Full Metal, only because he had been on the teams a really long time and he'd never give her number out to anyone, and Lisa.

She groaned as she reached for the phone and tried to place where she was. She wasn't in her apartment in Virginia Beach and she wasn't waking up in some container in Afghanistan. Definitely a new bed, too. As she grabbed the offending device, she realized where she was. She was in the spare bedroom of Paul Mulwray's house. The absolute last place she ever thought she'd be.

She looked at the time before answering before it went to voicemail. 5:13 a.m. And BLOCKED as the caller ID. Which smelled of CIA or Navy involvement. "This better be World War 3."

It was Blackburn. "It's not but I need you to come back."

"48 hours, Eric. That's all I asked for."

He sighed on the other line. "Sorry. The boys at Pensacola who flew you down have agreed to fly you back at 3 p.m. today so please be there."

"Why are you cutting my vacation short?" She asked.

Blackburn laughed. "As ridiculous as this sounds, I can't tell you over a non-secured line. Trust me, it's not even a good reason you're coming back."

"Fuck you, Eric," she said and hung up. If she stayed on the line any longer, she'd hurl a lot more than a "fuck you" for him waking her up at little after 5 without a good reason other than to tell her she needed to be back in Virginia.

She rolled over and put the phone on the bedside table to see Paul standing in the doorway with two cups of coffee. "How much of that did you hear?"

"Forgot to start the coffee pot so I got up a little early because Lord knows you shouldn't be without coffee," he explained as he handed her the coffee. He had learned that in Afghanistan the hard way. A caffeinated Mandy was a good thing.

"Thanks," she replied, sincerely, as she wiped the hair from her face. "I don't even know how he got my number."

Paul leaned against the doorway as she sipped her coffee. "What time do you have to be back at Pensacola?"

Mandy sipped her coffee slowly. She couldn't remember the last time she had coffee in bed or someone had brought her coffee. "Flight leaves at 3. Fuckers."

He had so many sarcastic comments he could say to that but he decided not to go there this early in the morning. He knew Mandy had a gun on her and he didn't want to tempt fate. "Come on, the sunrise will be up in a few minutes and it is really pretty to look at from the beach."

"I haven't finished my coffee yet."

He rolled his eyes. "They make travel mugs for that. You might have heard of a brand called Yeti? They keep the coffee really warm."

Mandy groaned but handed the coffee over to Paul and got out of bed. She was on vacation. There was no reason to be up at 5:15 in the morning but he seemed to know what he was talking about and for once, Mandy would reluctantly give up her defenses and follow someone. "This better be good."

He seemed to pick up on that, as he was rather perceptive to her. "I know this is killing you right now."

She glared at him. "Let's go as soon as I get dressed."

"I'll have the coffee ready."

* * *

They watched the sunrise and just sat there in peace. Well, Paul sat on the blanket, Mandy laid on her back, across the blanket, looking at the sky and the ocean.

He looked down at her. "What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing."

He chuckled as he finished the last of his coffee. "Nothing doesn't make you show up in Destin, Florida."

She glared at him. She really hated when he called her out. "Very true. I have to ask, what's up with the house? Never really picture you living a block from the beach."

He nodded. "It's my grandmother's. She's a 101 this year and lives in a nursing home in town."

"Wow. 101 years old."

"Yep. She's a tough old lady. She was a nurse during WWII and the toughest person I've ever met, even beating Jason Hayes."

Mandy smiled. "And still kicking at 101."

"Yeah. When my dad finally convinced her that a home meant she didn't have to cook every day, she told me I should have the house and put down roots to marry a nice girl," he scratched his head. "Of course, I'm not exactly here that often."

"I'd love to meet her," Mandy said, as she sat up and crossed her legs.

"When was the last time you sat on the beach and just did nothing?" Paul knew that question was treading on dangerous ground but he asked it anyways. He was good at asking those types of questions but Mandy shut down quickly compared to most people.

she moved the sand around with her toes. "I don't remember. I don't remember the last time I sat on a beach."

Paul looked at her and realized she wasn't quite ready to talk about what brought her to the Sunshine State and his front porch. Asking her tough questions would sending her running and he wanted her to open up because he could see that she desperately needed to. Whatever was weighing on her was on her shoulders hard. "Come on, there's still stuff to see and do around here before you have to go back to Pensacola."

She decided to take a leap of faith and grab his hand and squeeze it before they got up. She looked at him directly. "Thank you." She meant that, she really did. She tried to make sure her eyes showed that as well.

* * *

If someone told Mandy Ellis a week ago that she would be letting Paul Mulwray drive her onto a Navy base, voluntarily, she would have laughed at them and probably told them to go to hell because that was out of the realm of possibilities. But here she was, having handed her DOD credential's to Paul to hand over to the base gate guard at Pensacola. He had handed his own DOD credentials over to the gate guard.

As he drove to where she would be taking off, she looked at him. "Are those creds even valid?"

Paul laughed. "No. But does an E3, which he was, typically look at the expiration date on those?"

"Fair point." Her phone chimed. "Rental car company finally emailed me the return process." Thankfully for chain rental car companies, she had dropped the rental car off back in Destin but the return had not gone that smoothly and Paul had to drive rather fast to make that 3 p.m. departure time. She also knew the Air Force boys wouldn't be taking off without her though. Blackburn would have made sure of that.

Paul parked his truck beside the hangar where Mandy directed him to. Lisa had texted her directions of where to go to once she got to Pensacola, which was great because she wasn't a huge fan of asking the Navy cop's for directions on base. To her surprise he got out of the truck when she did.

"Thanks for letting me crash this weekend. I know you weren't really expecting me," she said.

He laughed. "That was certainly a surprise. Well surprise is actually putting it mildly. What's next for you?"

"Deployment," she thought about it. Due to OPSEC she shouldn't flat out tell him where she was going but as a sign of trust she told him what she could. "Where the air sucks."

Paul got what she was talking about and the meaning behind it. "Stay safe over there. I know you have the almighty Bravo protecting you; but stay safe."

"I'll watch my six."

To her surprise, he reached out and gave her a huge hug and she completely melted into it. He spoke low. "Whenever you are ready to talk about it, whatever brought you to Florida, whatever amends you need to make, feel free to show up again. You're CIA, I trust you'll be able to find me."

She was at the point of almost crying but tried not to and instead laughed. "State Department, Paul. State Department."

"Yeah, okay. I'll believe that the day you don't tell Blackburn to fuck off at 5 a.m. when he calls to ruin your vacation."

She slowly pulled back from the hug as she noticed the Air Force boys were ready and wanted to leave and couldn't leave without her. "Stay safe as well," she said as she grabbed her bag from his truck.

"Mandy," he called as she started walking to the plane. "Find me if you need to talk over there. Promise me that."

She hesitated but nodded. "Promise." And then she walked to the idling C-17 that was waiting for her, trying to wipe away tears. She never did get the healing she was hoping to get while in Florida but she did figure out somethings while she was there. The person she needed to make amends with was more than willing to hear her out. And for that she was extremely grateful, for when she could talk about what happened in Venezuela and The List that she carried around that weighed heavily on her.

* * *

**AN: I planned to leave the last chapter a one shot but the writers gave me such good material to work with regarding Mandy... so yes, the next chapter will be about the last scene with her in 3x19. **


End file.
